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The presence of bacterial biofilms in clinical and industrial settings is a major issue worldwide. A biofilm is a viscoelastic matrix, composed of bacteria producing a network of Extracellular Polymeric Substances (EPS) to which bacteria…
Flagellar-driven locomotion plays a critical role in bacterial attachment and colonization of surfaces, contributing to the risks of contamination and infection. Tremendous attempts to uncover the underlying principles governing bacterial…
Anisotropic collective patterns occur frequently in the morphogenesis of 2D biofilms. These patterns are often attributed to growth regulation mechanisms and differentiation based on gradients of diffusing nutrients and signalling…
The diffusion of particles in complex media has gained significant interest due to its dual relevance: probing the viscoelastic properties of materials via microrheology and assessing the extent of particle displacement over time. In this…
Bacterial cellulose biofilms are complex networks of strong interwoven nanofibers that control transport and protect bacterial colonies in the film. Design of diverse applications of bacterial cellulose films also relies on understanding…
Active nematics are the nonequilibrium analog of passive liquid crystals in which anisotropic units consume free energy to drive emergent behavior. Similar to liquid crystal (LC) molecules in displays, ordering and dynamics in active…
Conjugation is the primary mechanism of horizontal gene transfer that spreads antibiotic resistance among bacteria. Although conjugation normally occurs in surface-associated growth (e.g., biofilms), it has been traditionally studied in…
We propose a model of antibiotic diffusion through a bacterial biofilm when diffusion and/or absorption barriers develop in the biofilm. The idea of this model is: We deduce details of the diffusion process in a medium in which direct…
Quantifying the action of antibiotics on biofilms is essential to devise therapies against chronic infections. Biofilms are bacterial communities attached to moist surfaces, sheltered from external aggressions by a polymeric matrix.…
Growing tissue and bacterial colonies are active matter systems where cell divisions and cellular motion generate active stress. Although they operate in the non-equilibrium regime, these biological systems can form large-scale ordered…
Bacteria frequently colonize natural microcavities such as gut crypts, plant apoplasts, and soil pores. Recent studies have shown that the physical structure of these spaces plays a crucial role in shaping the stability and resilience of…
Despite the importance that fluid flow plays in transporting and organizing populations, few laboratory systems exist to systematically investigate the impact of advection on their spatial evolutionary dynamics. To address this problem, we…
Several bacteria and bacteria strands form biofilms in different environmental conditions, e.g. pH, temperature, nutrients, etc. Biofilm growth, therefore, is an extremely robust process. Because of this, while biofilm growth is a complex…
Bacterial populations often have complex spatial structures, which can impact their evolution. Here, we study how spatial structure affects the evolution of antibiotic resistance in a bacterial population. We consider a minimal model of…
We study non-equilibrium bacterial colony growth using a geometry-first, time-resolved analysis of morphology. From time-lapse microscopy data, we track the coupled evolution of area, perimeter, and boundary-sensitive shape descriptors…
Biofilm infections on medical implants are difficult to eradicate because insufficient nutrient availability promotes antibiotic-tolerant persister cells that survive treatment and reseed growth. Existing mathematical models usually omit…
The anchoring biofilm layer is expected to exhibit a different response to environmental stresses than for portions in the bulk, due to the protection from other strata and the proximity to the attachment surface. The effect of hydrodynamic…
Microbial colonies cultured on agar Petri dishes have become a model system to study biological evolution in populations expanding in space. Processes such as clonal segregation and gene surfing have been shown to be affected by…
Microfiltration technology is a widely used engineering strategy for fresh water production and water treatment. The major concern in many applications is the formation of a biological fouling layer leading to increased hydraulic resistance…
Biological active materials such as bacterial biofilms and eukaryotic cells thrive in confined micro-spaces. Here, we show through numerical simulations that confinement can serve as a mechanical guidance to achieve distinct modes of…